Thousands Queue To See Queen Lying At Rest

About 20,000 people are waiting in a mile-long queue to file past the Queen’s coffin in Edinburgh, according to police estimates.

Ex-servicemen and women, families and new friends are among those who have travelled across the country to pay their respects, reports the BBC.
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They began filing into St Giles’ Cathedral at about 17:30.

Earlier, thousands watched King Charles III follow his mother’s coffin in a procession along the Royal Mile.

Gillian and Michael Hainsworth, from Garforth in Yorkshire, waited seven hours before they entered the cathedral.

“It was just so emotional,” said Gillian. “It is hard to explain. It comes over you all of a sudden.”

“You are only a couple of metres away from the coffin,” Michael added. “You can linger there for a bit and say a prayer.”

Rodney Matthews, a retired Baptist minister and member of Old Saint Paul’s, a Scottish Episcopal Church in the heart of Edinburgh, said the moment was “just very moving”.

“You were able to move very slowly through, there was no rush at all,” he said. “There’s a moment where you can actually stand there and take it all in, the dignity of the whole place.

“It was very well done, very well organised once you go through security and get that feeling of space.”

Matthews was awarded an MBE for his work on a millennium project about pilgrims crossing Scotland.

“The Queen was very gracious when I met her, and I wanted to acknowledge her in the same way,” he added.